The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faces its toughest challenge from the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) in the next round of voting in Uttar Pradesh on May 12 as the electoral arithmetic favours the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance on almost all the 14 seats going to polls.
The BJP had swept the region in 2014 winning all except Azamgarh but it will take nothing less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charisma to repeat the performance as number crunching shows MGB to be on a stronger wicket, at least on paper.
In Phulpur, the seat from where the MGB experiment started, the BJP has already witnessed the alliance strength as it lost the constituency in 2018 bypolls.
If votes polled by SP and BSP candidates in 2014 are taken into account and if the two parties have their traditional vote-base intact, then the BJP runs the risk of losing all these 14 seats in phase 6 barring perhaps Pratapgarh.
The BJP will bank heavily on the vote-swaying power of the Prime Minister as his campaign blitzkrieg might break the traditional vote bank barriers.
After five rounds, fate of the candidates on 53 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh has already been sealed and till now the BJP and MGB are placed evenly in terms of number equation. But in Round 6, MGB poses the strongest resistance to the BJP.
Stakes are high for MGB leader Akhilesh Yadav who is contesting from Azamgarh, a seat won by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2014. He is facing popular Bhojpuri actor Dinesh Lal Yadav "Nirhua" who has been fielded by the BJP to break the Yadav stronghold.
Fate of BJP leader Maneka Gandhi will also be decided as she is contesting from Sultanpur, a seat held by her son Varun Gandhi.
In Pratapgarh, BJP's Kuwar Harivansh had polled 3,75,789 votes in 2014 which is more than the combined votes polled by SP and BSP candidates.
This time, the BJP has fielded Sangam Lal Gupta, who is facing Ashok Kumar Tripathi of MGB and Ratna Singh of the Congress in a triangular contest which favours the BJP.
Ratna Singh had got 1,38,620 votes in the last elections. The seat has sizeable presence of the Congress.
But a lot of equations have changed between 2014 and 2019 which will have bearing on the outcome of the polls.
BJP' sitting MP in Allahabad Shyam Charan Gupta is now the SP candidate from Banda. Another BJP MP, Ram Charitra Nishad from Machhlishehr also joined the SP.
A detailed analysis of Phase 6 UP seats
Shrawasti (2014)
Winner: Daddan Mishra -- BJP -- votes polls 3,45,964
Atiq Ahmad -- SP -- 2,60,051
Lal Ji Verma -- BSP -- 1,94,890
SP+BSP4,54,941
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
Daddan Mishra - BJP
Dhirendra Pratap Singh -- UPA
Ram Shiromani Verma -- MGB
Domariyaganj (2014)
Winner: Jagdambika Pal -- BJP -- 2,98,845
Mata Prasad Pandey -- SP -- 1,74,778
Muhammad Muqueem -- BSP -- 1,95,257
SP+BSP3,70,035
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
Jagdambika Pal -- BJP
Aftab Alam -- MGB
Sultanpur (2014)
Winner: Feroze Varun Gandhi -- BJP -- 4,10,348
Pawan Pandey -- BSP -- 2,31,446
Shakeel Ahmad -- SP -- 2,28,114
SP+BSP4,59,590
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
Maneka Gandhi -- BJP
Sanjay Singh -- UPA
Chandrabhadra Singh -- MGB
Kamla Yadav -- PDA
Pratapgarh (2014)
Winner: Kuwar Harivansh Singh -- BJP -- 3,75,789
Asif Nizamuddin -- BSP -- 2,07,567
Pramod Kumar Singh Patel -- SP -- 1,20,107
SP+BSP3,27,674
Adv: BJP
Lalganj (2014)
Winner: Neelam Sonkar -- BJP -- 3,24,016
Dr. Baliram -- BSP -- 2,33,971
Bechai Saroj -- SP -- 2,60,930
SP+BSP4,94,901
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
Neelam Sonkar -- BJP
Pankaj Mohan Sarkar -- UPA
Sangeeta -- MGB
Hemraj Paswan -- PDA
Azamgarh (2014)
Winner: Mulayam Singh Yadav -- SP -- 3,40,306
Ramakant Yadav -- BJP -- 2,77,102
Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali -- BSP -- 2,66,528
SP+BSP6,06,834
Contestants in 2019
Dinesh Lal Yadav "Nirhua" -- BJP
Akhilesh Yadav -- MGB
Jaunpur (2014)
Winner: Krishna Pratap 'KP' -- 3,67,149 BJP
Parasnath Yadav -- SP -- 1,80,003
Subhash Pandey -- BSP -- 2,22,0839
SP+BSP4,00,842
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
KP Singh: BJP
Devvrata Mishra: UPA
Shyam Singh Yadav -- MGB
Sangeeta Yadav -- PDA
Machhlishahr (2014)
Winner: Ram Charitra Nishad -- BJP -- 4,38,210
Tufani -- SP -- 1,91,387
Bholanath alias BP Saroj -- BSP -- 2,66,055
SP+BSP4,57,442
Contestants in 2019
VP Saroj -- BJP
Triveni Ram -- MGB
Bhadohi (2014)
Winner: Virendra Singh -- BJP -- 4,03,695
Seema Mishra -- SP -- 2,38,712
Rakesh Dhar Tripathi -- BSP -- 2,45,554
SP+BSP5,04,266
Contestants in 2019
Ramesh Bind -- BJP
Ramakant Yadav -- UPA
Rangnath Mishra -- MGB
Basti (2014)
Winner: Harish Chandra alias Harish Dwivedi -- BJP -- 3,57,680
Brij Kishor Singh -- SP -- 3,24,118
Ram Prasad Chaudhary -- BSP -- 2,83,747
SP+BSP=6,07,865
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
Harish Dwivedi: BJP
Raj Kishore Singh : UPA
Ram Prasad Chaudhary : MGB
Ramkeval Yadav: PDA
Sant Kabir Nagar (2014)
Winner: Sharad Tripathi -- BJP -- 3,48,892
Bhishm Shankar alias Kushal tiwari -- BSP -- 250914
Dhal Chandra Yadav -- SP -- 2,40,169
SP+BSP4,91,083
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
Pravin Kr. Nishad: BJP
Parvez Khan: UPA
Bhim Shankar aka Kushal Tiwari: MGB
Allahabad (2014)
Winner: Shyam Charan Gupta -- BJP -- 3,13,772
Keshri Devi -- BSP -- 1,62,073
Kunwar Rewati Raman Singh -- SP -- 2,51,763
SP+BSP4,13,836
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
Rita Bahuguna: BJP
Rajendra Singh Patel: MGB
Yogesh Shukla: UPA
Ambedkar Nagar (2014)
Winner: Hari Om Pandey -- BJP -- 4,32,104
Rakesh Pandey -- BSP - 2,92,675
Ram Murti Verma -- SP -- 2,34,467
SP+BSP5,22,142
Advantage: MGB
Contestants in 2019
Mukut Bihari Verma: BJP
Ummed Singh Nishad :UPA
Ritesh Pandey: MGB
Prem Nishad: PDA
Phulpur (2014)
Winner: Keshav Prasad Maurya -- BJP -- 5,03,564
Kapil Muni Karwariya -- BSP -- 1,63,710
Dharam Raj Singh Patel: 1,95,082
SP+BSP3,58,792
Contestants in 2019
Keshri Patel: BJP
Pankaj Niranjanjan: UPA
Pandhari Yadav: MGB
Priya Singh PDA
--IANS
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